Hello, my name is Jared and I am homeless. Well. I was homeless. I’m now fighting for my life. How did I find myself in that predicament? Well, I chose to. Why? Because I want to win half a million dollars.
Last Night, I was walking around the streets of downtown Nashville. I finished the day off with around thirteen dollars in my pocket. I’m not homeless because I had shit luck. I’m homeless because I was a stubborn twenty-year-old trying to make it out on my own. I had family waiting for me back home, but I wasn’t ready to crawl back to my family yet. Like I said, I’m a stubborn guy. I would rather die than beg my parents to take me back.
With the thirteen dollars I had in my pocket I could buy two gatorades, three ham and cheese sandwiches, and a pack of smokes. I was on the way to my usual convenience store when a man got out of the back seat of a Bentley and walked up to me. He was casually dressed in a t-shirt and jeans but I knew that the clothes he wore cost a small fortune. As he stuck out his hand towards me he said, “Hey bud my name is Elijah and I would like to buy you some dinner. You look hungry.” I shook his hand and asked him, “Why? I have a little bit of money. I can buy my own dinner.”
He chuckled and said, “Well. It looks like you haven’t had a decent meal in ages. Tell you what. I have way too much money and I like helping out people less fortunate. I’ll get you some dinner and we can talk. If you don’t like what I say I will personally go to any hotel of your choice and get you a room for 3 months. That sound fair?”
I thought about it for a second before nodding my head nervously at him. He put his arm around my shoulder and led me into his car. He didn’t take me anywhere really fancy. Just the local steakhouse and we took our seat at the back of the restaurant. He ordered a salad and I ordered a t-bone steak. The first half of the meal was silent. He wasn’t really eating, just kept staring into the salad and moving around pieces of lettuce with his fork.
The silence was broken when he put down his fork and let out a small cough. I looked back up at him with a large chunk of steak in my mouth and he softly asked, “I have an opportunity for you.” I swallowed what was in my mouth and asked, “What kind of opportunity? Like a job?” He gave me a small smile and said, “Yeah. Well. Kind of. Let me be completely honest with you. I see you as a strong willed person. Suicide is the last thing on your mind, and that is what I am looking for. I have been watching you for the last three days. Keep in mind. This is an opportunity for you to make half a million dollars. That should be enough for you to be happy for a very long time.”
Half curious and half disturbed, I put down my fork and asked, “What do you mean you watched me for three days? What do I have to do to make the money? How do I know you even have that much money?”
After taking a deep breath, he got up from his chair and sat next to me. He leaned his face towards my ear and whispered, “Five people go in. One person leaves. This is for a, hm, let’s just say it’s a show. People from all over the world pay fifty grand to watch you guys like it’s a reality tv show. Of course, people will die and it might be you, but if you win. You get to take home five hundred grand. No strings attached.”
I scooted away from him and pushed the meal away from me. He started to speak again but I held my hand up and told him to let me think.
I know. Money isn’t everything, but this was an opportunity for me. Probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. I knew the probabilities pointed to an early grave for me, but I just couldn’t lose this chance.
A chance to finally prove to my family that I was fully self-capable.
I looked back at him and said, “I’m in. When do we start?”
He clapped his hands together and said, “Well we need to head out now. I will drive you to our private airplane. Erm. I’m going to have to blindfold you when we get in the car, but the contest starts the day after tomorrow.”
When he got up from his chair I got up and followed him to his car. He grabbed a blindfold from the front passenger seat and handed it to me. I covered my eyes up and sat back. After a couple of minutes, I felt the car start up and he put something in my hand and said, “Take this pill. It’ll knock you right out.” I shrugged my shoulders and threw the pill into my mouth and swallowed it. As the car started to speed up I slowly drifted off.
I woke up and felt a small pain inside of my ear. Once I managed to stand up I rubbed my eyes and looked around. Within a couple of seconds, I knew I was on a plane. There were two other guys and two women sleeping on their chairs. I sat back down on my seat and stared out the window. I noticed that it was the morning now. We were descending, but all I could see was the ocean. After a couple of minutes, the plane started to descend quickly. I looked out the window and saw an endless amount of trees. As the plane started to quickly go down I sat back in my seat and braced myself. I was completely convinced that we were about to crash into the trees, but as the plane touched down on the ground I saw that we were in a small clearing.
The plane came to a stop and a door opened from the back of the plane. Elijah came out and walked to the front of the plane. I looked around and saw that everyone else was awake. He looked at all of us for a second before saying, “Alright. Let me see if I can remember. Jared, Blake, Cody, Allison, and Elise. Did I get that right?” We all nodded and he smiled before continuing, “Okay follow me out of the plane and I will lead you guys to your room. The contest starts tomorrow. We have a computer for each of you to use. You can call out for help if you’d like too, but it won’t help. You see. We are now on an island that is not traceable. Plus, if you get found you won’t win the money! So. The nights are your time. The daytime is entertainment time. Your only objective is to not be the last one to finish the challenge. The last one to complete the challenge will provide our lovely viewers with whatever they request.”
He snapped his fingers at us and we all got up and followed him out of the plane and saw a small house in front of us. I started to panic, but I reminded myself that this is what I wanted.
A chance to either prove myself or die.
I was the first one to walk into the house and looked around. It was a small house with worn down hardwood floors, blue wall paint that was chipping with age, and a kitchen with surprisingly new appliances. The only thing in the living room was a small brown couch. I walked past the kitchen and into the only bedroom in the house. It was a larger room than I expected. There were five small beds with a laptop on each bed. The others walked up to the room and quietly picked out their bed. I chose the one closest to the door.
Elijah walked into the room and said, “I lied. The contest starts today. Open your laptop and turn it on. There will be a window that pops up. If you turn off your laptop or turn off the screen you instantly lose.” He closed the door and I grabbed my laptop and booted it on. When the home screen came up a window came up almost immediately.
The window was completely white for a second before it showed a footage of Blake walking into a store and groping a man’s ass before running out of the store. We all looked at him and chuckled while he started to grow pale. The next clip showed Allison sitting in an alley shoving a needle into her arm and slowly injecting herself. I looked at her, but she looked away from all of us. Next, it showed Elise breaking into a house. She walked up to the sleeping man on the couch and she grabbed her pocketknife and sunk it into his throat. She proceeded to stab him 4 more times before running around his house and grabbing whatever valuable thing she saw. When her clip ended none of us looked at her. We didn’t want to see a person witnessing a murder they committed.
Right as they showed me on the screen I knew what it was. It was from two days ago. I was in the convenience store I always went into. A woman walked into the store and I don’t know what came over me, but she was beautiful. She was wearing a very short skirt and a white shirt that prominently revealed her nipples when under the right light. I reached into my pants and pleasured myself. Right as I climaxed I looked up and saw that she was staring at me in disgust. I gave her a small nod before running out the store. I heard a couple of chuckles coming from the others, but the only thought that was running through my head was how they managed to get that filmed.
Right as the next clip came up I heard Cody yell out, “Fuck that. What the fuck. You show pussy ass shit for everyone else. Why the fuck you show me doing this shit?” I looked back at the screen and saw Cody speaking to an old woman. They were laughing together while sitting on a park bench. She handed him a picture and I saw Cody’s face instantly turn sour. He started to yell at her and grab her by the shoulder. She tried pushing off of him, but he then put his hands around his throat and started to squeeze. She tried to get out of his grip, but she became still and he let go of her throat and ran away. The screen zoomed in on the picture. It was of Cody, the woman, and a man. “I love you son, but please know that your daddy loved you just as much.”
Cody slammed his laptop shut and started to scream at us, “Don’t fucking judge me. I loved my mom, but she always backed up that filthy bitch. He fucking did shit to me man. He didn’t love me. He was a piece of shit.”
Elijah came into the room with two other men dressed in all black. The two men dressed in black picked up Cody and took him outside. Elijah stayed in the room and said, “Keep the laptops on and stay on the screen you were looking at. Watch Cody’s punishment so that you may know what happens when you lose.”
The screen came back live and I saw the two men standing behind Cody. He was sobbing and pleading for his life. It was the first time I saw a truly broken man. It took all of my willpower to not shut my laptop off right then.
Messages started to pop up on the bottom of the screen.
The first one said, “Take his eyes out. I don’t want him to see what we will do to him next.”
I saw Cody’s eyes glance down at the screen and he started to scream. The man on the right nodded his head and grabbed a rusty spoon from the table behind him. The other man held on to Cody’s face to keep it steady while the other guy scooped his eyes out.
The next message said, “I want you to cut off three of his fingers and shove it down his throat.” The man put down the spoon and grabbed a kitchen knife. While the other man held on to Cody’s hand I looked away from the screen. The sound of bones crunching vibrated my eardrums. I looked back at the screen and saw Cody’s scream halting and changing to gagging as three of his fingers were shoved down his throat.
The man that held the knife said, “One last request. Make this one fatal.”
The last message said, “Stab him in the head 14 times. Keep stabbing even if he dies.”
The man nodded his head and put the kitchen knife down and picked up a pocket knife.
Cody started to whisper, “Please. Please. Just let me go back. I won’t tell anyone about this. I just want to go back. I just” His pleading ended when the knife entered and exited his head with forceful stabs.
After the man stabbed Cody for the fourteenth time the screen blacked out and closed out.
Elijah looked at all of us for a couple of seconds before saying, “I will let you guys know when it is lunch time. The next challenge starts tomorrow. Prepare yourselves. Today was a cake walk.”
I’m not asking for help. I know I will probably die, but I want to finish this out. That is why I am not posting this on my facebook or alerting anyone I know. People are paying 50 grand to watch this, but I figure I might as well entertain you with the written version.
One down. [Three more to go.]
[For Day Two] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/66ally/i_will_either_face_a_gruesome_death_or_make_half/)